Matt Cohler (born March 27, 1977) is an American

venture capitalist Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

. He worked as Vice President of Product Management for

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

until June 2008 and was formerly a general partner at Benchmark. Cohler has been named to the

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

Midas List of top technology investors and in 2019 was named to the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

and

CB Insights CB Insights is a private company with a business analytics platform and global database that provides market intelligence on private companies and investor activities. The platform is targeted at private equity, venture capital, investment bankin ...

list of top 10 venture capital investors. Cohler made the Forbes 'America's 40 Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40' list in 2015.

Education and early career

Cohler earned a B.A. with honors and distinction in music from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

. Early in his career, Cohler worked in China and was a management consultant at

McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...

. He befriended

Reid Hoffman Reid Garrett Hoffman (born August 5, 1967) is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. Hoffman was the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for prof ...

and went on to become a founding member of Hoffman's startup

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...

. Cohler was vice president and general manager at LinkedIn and was considered CEO Hoffman's right-hand man. Cohler was one of the first five employees hired at Facebook. He was Facebook's vice president of product management and worked with the team during many of its critical growth phases. He continued to act as a "special advisor" to Facebook CEO

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), of ...

. In 2008, he left Facebook and became the youngest general partner at Benchmark.

Benchmark

At Benchmark, Cohler has backed the firm's investments in Dropbox,

Asana An asana is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose,Verse 46, chapter II, "Patanjali Yoga sutras" by Swami Prabhavananda, published by the Sri Ramakrishna Math p. 111 and later extended in hatha yoga ...

Quora Quora () is a social question-and-answer website based in Mountain View, California. It was founded on June 25, 2009, and made available to the public on June 21, 2010. Users can collaborate by editing questions and commenting on answers that ...

, Greenhouse, Domo,

Tinder Tinder is easily combustible material used to start a fire. Tinder is a finely divided, open material which will begin to glow under a shower of sparks. Air is gently wafted over the glowing tinder until it bursts into flame. The flaming tinder i ...

, Duo Security, DeepL, Edmodo,

ResearchGate ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. According to a 2014 study by ''Nature'' and a 2016 article in ''Times Higher Education'' ...

, 1stdibs, Peixe Urbano, CouchSurfing, Baixing, and Zendesk. In 2011, he led a $7 million round of funding for

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

, which agreed in April 2012 to be acquired by Facebook for $1 billion. In March 2014, Cohler led Benchmark's investment in

Xapo Xapo is an international, private bank headquartered in Gibraltar and licensed by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. The company originally provided a bitcoin wallet combined with a cold storage vault and a bitcoin-based debit card a ...

, a

Bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...

wallet/insured cold storage vault. Cohler sits on the boards of Asana, Quora, ResearchGate, and 1stdibs. In 2018, it was announced that Cohler would "step back" from Benchmark and not be a part of their next fund. Although he departed the Benchmark fund, he was expected to continue to hold his board seats, including at Uber. Cohler later left the Uber board in July 2019, at the same time as Arianna Huffington.

Additional affiliations

Cohler is vice president of the

San Francisco Symphony The San Francisco Symphony (SFS), founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San F ...

board of governors, board trustee at

Environmental Defense Fund Environmental Defense Fund or EDF (formerly known as Environmental Defense) is a United States-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group. The group is known for its work on issues including global warming, ecosystem restoration, oceans, and hu ...

, and a member of the endowment investment committees at

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is an organization established and owned by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan with an investment of 99 percent of the couple's wealth from their Facebook shares over their lifet ...

and the Yale Investments Office.

Politics

In April 2013, a lobbying group called

FWD.us FWD.us is a 501(c)(4) pro-immigration lobbying group based in the United States that advocates for prison reform, status for undocumented immigrants, particularly for DACA recipients, and higher levels of immigration visas, particularly for H ...

(aimed at lobbying for immigration reform and improvements to education) was launched, with Cohler listed as one of the founders.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cohler, Matt American computer businesspeople Yale University alumni 1977 births Living people Facebook employees Businesspeople from New York City McKinsey & Company people American venture capitalists 21st-century American businesspeople American corporate directors Directors of Uber